As The World Turns
Italian politicians drop trousers in budget protest
Around 50 left-wing municipal officials dropped their trousers at Rome's city hall on Monday to call for the speedy passage of the Italian capital's 2010 budget.
"Alemanno has reduced us to our underwear," read one protester's poster, referring to the city's right-wing mayor Gianni Alemanno.
"Parks and gardens abandoned," "Homeless people, empty homes," others read.
Sandro Medici, the mayor of Cinecitta, the home of the city's legendary movie studios, said Alemanno was dragging his feet over passing the budget "for electoral reasons, because it contains unpopular taxes."
"Without a budget, we only have funds for current expenses," said. "In my district, two schools that are supposed to open in September won't be able to operate."
Eleven of Rome's 19 districts are headed by left-wing mayors. Italy is set to hold elections in 13 of the country's 20 regions, including Rome's Lazio region, at the end of the month
Gunman tries to attack Lenin's corpse in Red Square
A man armed with a high-powered gas pistol tried to break into Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin's tomb on Red Square in Moscow, shooting a policeman in the process.
Thinking they had an easy target, Somali pirates mistakenly attack a Dutch warship.
Also:
Pakistani court charges 5 Americans with terrorism
A Pakistani court charged five young Americans on Wednesday with planning terrorist attacks in the South Asian country and conspiring to wage war against nations allied with Pakistan, their defense lawyer said.
The men — all Muslims from the Washington suburb of Alexandria, Virginia — pleaded not guilty to a total of five charges, the most severe of which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison, defense lawyer Hasan Dastagir said.
'Saudi Arabia' of marine energy signs contracts
This is a very interesting new energy project. Besides the project itself, it's also interesting to note that one of the energy companies involved had previously been promoting a coal energy project which was stopped after protests. In France, the energy company has to purchase a certain percentage of their power from such sources. Google has recently been called out for moving a new data center to an area that uses coal energy as opposed somewhere that uses green energy. It's important that governments encourage alternative energy projects like this but it's also helpful if businesses encourage and reward the same.
Neat stuff.
The seabed off the north coast of Scotland could be transformed into the "Saudi Arabia of marine energy" after seven power firms were awarded contracts for a landmark project designed to harness the area's potential for tidal energy and power up to 750,000 homes by 2020.
More than 20 firms were originally in the running for the project, billed as the world's first commercial wave and tidal scheme, in the Pentland Firth between northern Scotland and the Orkney Islands.
Yesterday, the seven successful bidders were informed by the Crown Estate, which owns much of the UK seabed and is funding the project alongside the Scottish government and local partners.
Commemorating Nazis?
Riga, we have a problem. I get the whole "we hate Soviet Russia" part but praising the Nazi SS in the process is revolting.
The remembrance ceremonies at Riga's Freedom Monument and the Lutheran cathedral are hugely divisive because they pay tribute to those who fought alongside the Nazis in a vain attempt to halt the Red Army's reconquest of the Baltic state in 1944.
While Russians accuse the Latvians of Nazi revivalism and Jewish leaders protest at attempts to "rewrite history" and belittle the Holocaust, the veterans, all pushing 90, and Latvian nationalists insist they are entitled to remember a famous 1944 battle in which the Latvian legion comprising two divisions conscripted into Hitler's Waffen-SS linked up for the only time in the war to try to thwart Stalin.
The 16 March commemoration, briefly declared a national holiday in the 1990s by a nationalist government, was banned by the Riga city council on security grounds, but the courts overruled the ban on Monday, raising fears of ugly scenes, with clashes predicted between Latvian and Russian youths who regularly hijack the event.
Australian man caught with meat and two veg in pants
A homeless Australian man caught putting a beef tongue down his pants also had rump steaks, lamb chops, limes and onions hidden in his seemingly bottomless trousers.
Mau Gibuma, 51, who was seen trying to shoplift at Woolworths’ Abbott St supermarket on Thursday afternoon had been desperate for food after living on the streets, his lawyer Steve Carter said. "He simply had no money and was hungry," Mr Carter said.
Prosecutor Scott Parsons told Cairns Magistrates’ Court, where Gibuma was fined $100 for shoplifting, that Woolies’ security staff saw Gibuma put three limes in the pocket of his jeans then walk to the meat aisle, pick up a beef tongue and put it down the front of his trousers.
When taken into the office and asked to take the items out of his jeans, Gibuma reached into his pants and pulled out three trays of rump steaks and a packet of lamb forequarter chops. "When asked about the limes and beef tongue, he then produced those items," Sen-Constable Parsons said. "Asked if there was any other items,
he produced two onions."
Mr Carter said his client, who spent Thursday night in the watch-house, had been living in a night shelter at Westcourt after an argument with his sister, with whom he previously lived. He now planned to move to Townsville where his brother lives, he said.
Magistrate Allan Comans told Gibuma that he could convert his fine to community service if he had trouble paying it.
